Kukla's Korner Hockey

Look, you start with the goalie. One of the greatest terms in all of sport is one you hear ad nauseum this time of the year, about the goalie “standing on his head.” That is a metaphor, of course. But it also is about as true as true gets in sports, especially when you run into someone like Dominik Hasek back in the day, Henrik Lundqvist during most of these playoffs, even Dustin Tokarski for most of the other night.

Put it this way: In no other sport can a perfectly executed play be foiled. You hit a baseball 450 feet, nobody’s going to catch it. You throw a ball to an open receiver in stride, he’s going to the house.

You have an open lane to the basket, you will dunk the basketball. And in hockey, you can do everything exactly right, get a point-blank shot… and a skate can get in the way. Or a stick. Which means there really is no such thing as a perfect play.

And then comes the weird stuff: A bad patch of ice. A deflection. An accidental deflection.